Redesigning Worldwide Connections

In the next twenty years, the convergence of robotics, informatics, nano-bio-technologies, genetics, information technologies, and cognitive sciences will have a significant impact on society. This convergence will lead to a revolution in the way that science, health, energy, resources, production, consumption and environment are conceptualised. However, these technologies will also pose new and specific challenges in terms of sustainability, ethics, and even expectations of the future. Indeed, today, the word future is often associated with pessimism and fear, much more than it was in the past. In order to face all these technological, ethical and cultural challenges, governments, industries and societies will need a robust cognitive framework, in order to grasp the complex dimensions of the technological convergence in progress, and must rapidly develop effective strategies to face the situations that will, unavoidably, take place. This book provides, through systemic and complexity theories, some of the theoretical tools necessary to tackle the opportunities and risks of the future.